Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding.

I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... It was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.

Thinking of visiting Oxford?

Allow me to be your guide... and discover the history of Oxford with an Oxford historian.

I offer a wide range of guided walks around the city and university. These can be a general introduction to the history and architecture or looking at specific themes and subjects.

About Me

I am a Catholic and a historian based in Oxford, where I am a member of Oriel College. My research, for a long delayed D.Phil., is a study of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln in the second decade of the fifteenth century. I also work as a freelance tutor in History and as an independent tour guide.
I was received into the Church in 2005 and am a Brother of the External Oratory of St Philip Neri at the Oxford Oratory.

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Tuesday, 29 December 2015

Stephanie A. Mann has a post on her blog Supremacy and Survival today about Bl.William Howard who suffered martyrdom on this day in 1680. This was a consequence of the fabricated hysteria of the Popish Plot. Her post seen at The Popish Plot and The Howard Family

There is a useful account by J.C.Wall from his Shrines of British Saints,
published in 1905, of the shrine and its decoration, with contemporary
illustrations and descriptions as well as an account of the Translation
of the relics in 1220 which can be accessed at http://www.historyfish.net/shrines/cw_shrines_four4.html#thomas

Monday, 28 December 2015

Following on from the campaign to remove it a friend has forwarded to me the following link to a petition in support of retaining the statue of Cecil Rhodes on the High Street facade of Oriel. I have signed it and urge others to do so.

We do not want to become ( any more than we are already ) the sort of society that seeks to destroy its past by obliterating public statues and images. Should I start complaining about the "Martyr's Memorial" in Oxford and demand its removal because as a Catholic I feel oppressed or reminded of past oppression every time I walk past it by the figures of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley?

Only the upper part of this painting of St. John the Evangelist is now left on the south side beside the chancel arch at Weston Longville. In the corresponding position at the north side is John the Baptist, who is very faint now.

The painting has been restored, but St. John was probably always an impressive figure. He is shown here holding the most interesting of his attributes, a poisoned cup or chalice. According to his legend, John was ordered to drink from the cup as a test of his faith by the High Priest of Diana at Ephesus. Two condemned prisoners had already done so and died. John drank and survived unharmed, further demonstrating his power by restoring the two poisoned men to life. More often than not in painted versions of the story, a serpent or small dragon is shown emerging from the cup, to make the meaning intelligible. Here indeed is a small dragon, apparently uttering a cry of despair or frustration, although it has to be said that it looks more endearing than malevolent. Some of that may be due to restoration, but the creature does not look anything like so sinister as many others I have seen, particularly in paintings of St. John on East Anglian screens. A change in sensibilities since the Middle Ages is probably also operating - the whole painting has an slight but inescapable cartoonish air. [Extract from the website below]

St John on the right, and on the left his brother St. James the Great, by Miguel Ximénez and workshop in a panel of his and Martín Bernad's late fifteenth-century altarpiece of the Holy Cross completed in,1487 for the parish church of Blesa (Teruel) and now, after dismemberment, mostly in the Museo de Zaragoza

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

Three hundred years ago, on December 22nd 1715, there arrived at Peterhead in Scotland, with the hope of leading an army to his successful installation on the throne, the Stuart claimant King James III and VIII.

The Jacobite King James III and VIII

A portrait of c. 1717

Image:historicalportraits.com

An eighteenth century engraving of the landing at Peterhead

Image: Wikipedia

Originally the plan had been to land at Montrose, but the ship sailed north a avoid a vessel there and when the claimant arrived at Peterhead there were no troops to meet him. Unlike the engraving reproduced above James was so ill with seasickness that the ship's captain had to carry him ashore.

By the time he arrived the critical moment in the chances for the success of the rising had already passed, and the coronation as King of Scots on January 23rd at Scone never took place, and in February 1716 he was advised to return to the continent so as to safeguard his person.

On a seasonable Jacobite link it is often said that "O Come, All ye Faithful" originated as a Jacobite anthem. The origins of the hymn and its Jacobite associations are discussed in the online account at

Saturday, 19 December 2015

December 19th is the feast day of Bl. Urban V, who was Pope from 1362 until his death on this day in 1370. John Dillon has once again posted about him on the Medieval Religion discussion group.

The nobly born Guillaume de Grimoard was a well educated Benedictine who made his profession at Saint-Victor in Marseille and who became abbot first of Saint-Germain at Auxerre and later of Saint-Victor. Though not a cardinal, he had been a Papal legate in Italy several times in the decade before his election to the Papacy in 1362. Taking the name Urban, he cut the rate of tithes in half, supported students through bursaries and the foundation of colleges, and sponsored many building projects, especially in his native Lozère, where he funded continued work on the recently begun but already fire-damaged cathedral of Mende, and in Rome. Many of the latter's churches were in great disrepair and the basilica of St. John in the Lateran had to be largely rebuilt after succumbing to a fire in 1360.

In 1367 he fulfilled a previously announced intention by changing his residence from Avignon to Rome. On 1 March 1368 Urban's preparations to say Mass in the Papal chapel (the Sancta Sanctorum) of the Lateran basilica led to the discovery there of the putative heads (cranial fragments) of Sts. Peter and Paul, which latter he then had placed in new reliquaries; on 15 April 1370 these were enshrined in a newly built ciborium over the basilica's high altar. Urban commemorated this happy event, so thematically significant for his renewal of the Roman Papacy, on at least one of his seals; reference to it would become standard in his Italian iconography.

The move to Rome was motivated in part by a desire on Urban's part to effect a reunion with the Greek church and by his perception that Rome, rather than Avignon, was a better stage from which to promote the crusade against the Turks that he had proclaimed in 1363. The latter was not a success, while the Greek policy resulted in the personal conversion, in Rome, of the Emperor John V but not in any greater Eastern adherence to Latin Christianity. Moreover, outbreaks of plague and violence in the city and armed struggles with condottieri elsewhere in Italy gradually soured Urban on the idea of ruling from Rome. Disappointing many Italians and also St. Birgitta of Sweden, he returned to Avignon in early September of 1370. Urban died on December 19th of the same year. He was buried in Avignon; two years later his remains were moved to the abbey church of Saint-Victor in Marseille.

His cult was immediate and initially widespread. The Kings of France and Denmark promoted Urban's cause and a canonization inquest recorded in 1382 produced a number of miracles. Ultimately, though, his candidacy became an unfulfilled project of the Avignon papacy, stalling out in the conflicts of the Great Schism. Pius IX beatified him in 1870.

d) as depicted (holding bust-length portraits of Sts. Peter and Paul) by Simone dei Crocifissi (Simone de Filippo) in a later fourteenth-century panel painting (c. 1375) in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Bologna:

g) as depicted (holding a paten bearing miniature busts of St. Peter and St. Paul) in a remounted late fourteenth-century fresco in the chiesa di Santa Maria della Croce (a.k.a. chiesa di Casaranello) at Casarano (LE) in Apulia:

h) as depicted (at far left, enthroned; second from left, King Peter I of Cyprus; at centre, Florimont de Lesparre making his apologies to the king) in a late fourteenth-century copy of Guillaume de Machaut's La prise d'Alexandrie (c. 1380-1395; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 9221, fol. 235v):http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000795k/f494.item.zoom

l) as depicted (holding a chalice containing miniature heads of Sts. Peter and Paul) in the late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century frescoes of the rupestrian chiesa / cripta di Santa Croce ai Lagnoni in Andria (BT) in Apulia:

n) as depicted (holding a book surmounted by miniature busts of St. Peter and St. Paul) in an early fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1410), seemingly of Italian origin, in the chapelle Saint-Privat in Mende's cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Privat:

I did not manage to attend the Rorate Mass at the Oxford Oratory this morning. In recent years this has become a very popular feature of keeping Advent here. However here are two pictures from the Oratory website of the Mass, which was sung at seven o'clock this morning:

Friday, 18 December 2015

I am posting a mailing I received from that excellent charity Aid to the Church in Need:

HRH The Prince of Wales delivered an impassioned appeal on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, saying that the growing crisis of extremism “threatens the very existence of Christianity in the land of its birth”.

ACN attended a special Advent reception yesterday (17th December) at Archbishop’s House, Westminster, where the Prince called for more “practical” help for persecuted Christians and went on to praise ACN as “a remarkable organisation”.

Quoting from ACN’s ‘Persecuted and Forgotten? report, Prince Charles said: “Christianity is on course to disappear from Iraq within five years, unless emergency help is provided on a greatly increased scale.”